Seven Deadly Sins Confirmed For Shazam! Movie

The Seven Deadly Sins of Man have been confirmed to appear in DC Comics’ upcoming movie The mainline DCEU’s only major live-action release of 2019 (though Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie will also release), Shazam! stars Zachary Levi as the titular hero. Shazam is secretly a young teenage boy Billy Batson (played by Asher Angel), but when he says the magic word, Billy transforms into the incredibly powerful and adult Shazam, who has faced off against a number of mythical figures in the comics.

In Shazam!, only one major villain has been announced for Billy to fight before now. The apparent main antagonist of Shazam! will be Dr. Sivana, played by Mark Strong. A mad scientist type with serious superpowers, Sivana has been heavily featured in the promotional material for the movie. Evidently he will have some villainous back-up from a septet of monstrous creatures, The Seven Deadly Sins, who have deep ties to Shazam! lore.

Screen Rant attended an editing bay preview of Shazam! and a roundtable interview with the movie’s director David F. Sandberg and producer Peter Safran followed. During the Q&A, Sandberg was asked if he was able to use his horror background at all in Shazam! The DCEU’s last major release was Aquaman, which was directed by James Wan, known for The Conjuring. Wan added a few horror touches to Aquaman, mainly in the monstrous The Trench (who are receiving a spinoff). Sandberg was unsure what he could reveal but Safran explained:

I think, I mean obviously these guys have read the comics, they know that the Sins are going to be some way involved in the story. But without revealing exactly how they’re integrated into the storyline, you know I would that that’s probably as close as what James did with the Trench to really let David flex, you know, that kind of… to build those sequences that are scary and cool.

Sandberg continued by explaining that a lot of fun and effort went into designing the Sins. They can also be glimpsed as statues in a TV spot for Shazam! in the Rock of Eternity set. The Sins, as their name suggests, are the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust. In comic lore, the Sins were trapped and imprisoned by the Wizard, also named Shazam, who gives Billy his powers. The Sins are kept in the Wizard’s home called The Rock of Eternity. However since they’re supervillains, the Sins have often escaped their stony prison to wreak havoc in the lives of DC’s various heroes – but mainly Shazam.

Since Safran and Sandberg are mentioning the Sins, it’s likely that their appearance won’t just be as statue cameos in the middle of the film. This is pure speculation, but it’s much more plausible that the Sins will appear in the flesh. They’ll somehow escape the Wizard’s control during the course of Shazam! and end up attacking Billy or someone else. They could even move from the Wizard’s control to that of Dr. Sivana.

In the comics, Sivana is an obsessive type who mixes together the worlds of magic and science. Sivana even gains his powers by breaking into a tomb that holds Shazam’s eventual arch nemesis, Black Adam. Black Adam won’t appear in Shazam! but the movie could rework Sivana’s origins to include the Seven Deadly Sins. Perhaps instead of breaking into Black Adam’s tomb, Sivana will find his way into the lair of the Sins. The Sins could imbue Sivana with powers and corrupt him. The opposite could also be true with Sivana somehow gaining control of the Sins and turning them into his army. Now matter how they are included, it seems that the apparently colorful and family friendly will have a few scares in store for the audience.